AN ART COMPETITION.

Evening Star, Issue 12882, 3 August 1906, Page 11

AN ART COMPETITION.

Every year, just'after Easter, the competitions begin in Paris for the different Prix da R>nie. The Prix do Rome are awarded by the Academy to students of painting ; sculpture, music, and eugraving, and they carry with them a scholarship for four years at the Villa Medici's at Roine. The honor of winning the prize is gieat, aud therefore the competitors «re many and tho competitions great. But the prizes are nob awarded every year. For instance, a prize for tlm students of the Eeole des Beaux Arts has not been awarded (or two years. The students therefore hope that there will be three 'prizes given this year. Tho students' competitions began a week ago. Ten rooms opening on to a long corridor in the Eaole des Beaux Arts were set apart for them. The subject was " The Family," and thirty-six hours were given in which to make a preliminary sketch. The competitors' life during theso thirty-six hours was more monastic than that of a monk. The doors of the rooms were sealed ; beds were already there*; and their meals, really frugal were handed to them through a hatchment. Letters were __ delivered, but only after being opened by the examiners. Two days and a night altogether were spent in the celis, and afterwards the sketches wore handed in, placed in sealrd envelopes, to be left unopened until the prize is Awarded in June. They are only intended as a kind of amdel or idea on which a better picture wilt bo based. This more finished picture will be painted in forty days,, the students working at it in their cells twelve hours a day under lock and key, but they are no longer made to sleep by the side of the easels.